Howard Stark had wanted a boy. What he got is a little girl with a tuft of black hair and a scrunched up red face, and it's a cold December and he wonders if that means anything at all. Her back has Percival Ignatius Weasley written down it, and he's never heard the name Weasley, so his daughter won't be marrying old money. It's unusual to have a full name on your back. He had wanted a boy. He accepts what he got. His wife doesn't want another child and he's fine with just the one. They name her Audrey Francis Stark, Francis for Maria's sister, to call attention to the Catholic-ness of them. He thinks that he would have preferred Esther, after his mother.
Audey Stark is born with Percival Ignatius Weasley down her back and when she's five and sitting at the kitchen table with Jarvis making her dinner (her parents are having a party upstairs)(they're a million miles away from her) she says that it's a stupid name. "Don't say that miss. He's your soulmate."
"What if I don't like him?' (What if he doesn't like me?)
"Ahh, I don't think you need to worry yourself over that. Besides it's a nice enough name, a good English name."
Her father had wanted a boy. She knows that much. She knows she wants his approval and she knows she wants to make him mad and so she asks her aunty Peggy if there's any way to do both. Audey Stark is a very precocious five year old.
"You know. I had a problem like that once. I still have it, to be honest. I think the best thing you can do is this; be yourself." Aunty Peggy tells her, kneeling in front of her. Audey wants to be just like her when she grows up. She steals her mother's reddest lipstick and puts it on with her childs precision and she grins at herself in the mirror before she runs to show her father.
Audey Stark is a genius, and they send her to boarding school at age ten when she's beginning ninth grade. (What they don't tell her is this; her mother's taking pills and can't sleep without a bottle of sherry, Jarvis's heart attack really aged him, her father doesn't know what to do with her.) The school is in Switzerland and what you don't know about boarding school is this: there is the occasional famous persons kid, but mostly it's attended by children with a pedigree, children who can recite their history, children who understand that their life will rarely be their own. Audey Stark stands out like a sore thumb.
She hits MIT the year after she begins to bleed and she wonders if she'll always be going faster than the people around her. Even her so called soulmate. She stuffs her bras for the first half of the year she's there and when the tits finally come in good she ransacks a Victoria's Secret. Rhodey tries to look after her, he really does, but Audey doesn't want to be looked after. The booze and the boys and drugs and girls flock to Audey. Lucky for her she's got a body like sex and she grins like the devil and the only person see's through it all is Rhodey.
She gets the company. Renews the government's contracts. Never looks at the name on her back. Poses for playboy. Leaves Obie in charge a little too much. Hires Pepper. Invents. Gets kidnapped at age twenty two. They cut her hair and force Yinsen to hook her up to a battery and she gives herself a new heart and it's a machine that just keeps on ticking (she doesn't want it to) just like her old one.(she didn't want that one to either.)
The suit is big and bulky and they don't have it cut to her frame so it's too tight and to loose and she's sort of glad they cut her hair because it would only have got in the way. And Yinsen's dying and telling her not to waste her life and she wants to scream to the God that she doesn't believe in that this man deserves to live far more than her.
When New York is under attack she smiles(genuinely) at Romanoff and Hill. She understands what it's like to be a woman in a man's world. She likes Dr. Banner and Thor seems weird but nice, even taking into account the fight from before. Captain America AKA her father's hero is a killjoy asshole but Audey knows she's an obnoxious asshole so maybe they could also be friends if they live. Barton seems like a guy who has accidently eaten dog treats so all in all, she's pretty sure they're going to die.
She makes sure to hold her eyes open for as long as she can. The stars are beautiful. Space is cold. She had never felt her spine tingle a day in her life but in the two split seconds that she was in the space between worlds it's so intense it's like her muscles are spasming.
Percy Weasley was born with Audrey Francis Stark written on his spine. It's not a bad name and it's so complete that he could find her whenever he wanted, but for some reason he never really does. He's born in trouble times and his first few years are war, but he's a happy if shy boy.
When the hat tells him that Slytherin would be just as good a fit as Gryffindor he chooses Gryffindor because he may respect cunning more than anything but he's eleven and wants to be wildly brave more than anything else.
The redheaded boy grows tall(grows taller than his brothers, taller than his father), grows lonely and sad, grows even more cunning. Dumbledore asks him to spy. Asks him to leave his family. Asks him to break his mums heart and his own. Asks him to die every day. Asks him to allow his siblings to hate him. Asks him to ignore his father who might die any day thinking his third son hates him. Dumbledore asks a lot, and Percy says he'll do it all. A muggle agency approaches Dumbledore and asks if he needs help, offers to train any spies he might have when the old man(fool, Percy will think ruefully, when he realizes just what he's agreed to) declines.
They teach him how to shoot a gun a disable an opponent and they say he has potential, and a balding man named Coulson hands him his card tells him that if he lives through this and ever wants a job to call him.
After the war ends, when he's excepted back into the family and the twins are always grinning and his mum hums all the time, he goes back to work for the ministry. It's terrible. Everywhere he goes are memories and he's seen how bad the place is, all the corruption it has to offer and he doesn't want any part in it, but they're short staffed and in shambles and he feels like he should stay. For three years he stays. He hates it there and he can't remember why he ever wanted to go into politics and he starts wanting to do something he'll regret so he quits. Quits and gives Coulson a call.
He's junior agent Weasley now, and in this world no one knows a thing about his family and its freeing, to say the least. He meets her a month after he joins when she needs someone to help her disable a bomb(he's long since learned how to center his magic). She's grinning and cocky and he's wondering who this girl is, to be cracking jokes with Director Fury. "Stark, just defuse the damn bomb so I can get back to important shit."
"But why would I do that, Fury? This is the only quality time we've gotten in months and you know you like me better than Steve."
"Defuse the bomb Stark."
She rolls her eyes and cuts the wire. Percy holds his breath, waiting for the explosion. It comes in the form of her turning her eyes to him. "The place isn't going to go into ball of flame, you know that right? Geez what are you teaching these kids about bomb safety Fury? What's your name agent?"
He meets her eyes and he thinks she knows before he says. "Percy Weasley."
"Percy? Oh thank god I was worried I was going to have to introduce you to people as 'Percival' my whole life!" She jokes a little hysterically.
He's pretty sure out of her mind, and she knows she is.
They'll make it work, of course. He's Percy Weasley and she's Audey Stark and they both hate their middle names and quit their last jobs in a hurry and it's going to be explosive.